


All In

by afteriwake



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-26 00:59:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1668875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock has proposed a low pressure poker game between friends, and it becomes a much more interesting evening than anyone had anticipated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All In

**Author's Note:**

> So I am finally getting around to adding more stories for the **land_deduction** Bingo Card! This one answers the "Ms. Hudson" prompt on the Both Shows card, and it is also an answer to a prompt from **technicolorrelays** at Tumblr who asked for poker night at the brownstone. Enjoy!

Joan wasn't the type to gamble. She'd never gambled with her money, at the very least, and she never gambled with her heart. She was emotional, yes, but she was also sensible and not prone to doing rash or risky things. Most of the time, at any rate. Ever since she had met Sherlock Holmes there had been times she felt she'd gambled with her life or her sanity, though she would admit those times hadn't been as prevalent as she'd thought they might be.

Sherlock was always trying to hone her skills of deduction, so his suggestion that they attend a poker game so she could work on reading the little signs on a person when they were obscuring the truth and trying to bluff was a good one, but she'd balked at playing with a bunch of strangers, especially when he had insisted she play for money as opposed to just letting her learn. She had money, that wasn't the problem, but she also knew she had no experience with the game. If anyone else at the table was even remotely better than her she'd be broke in no time.

Sherlock had decided, in the end, to invite their friends to a low pressure game without any high stakes. The limit for the night was five hundred dollars, only to be raised if everyone agreed upon it. That took some of the pressure off her to be excellent at it. So far the only person not to arrive was Ms. Hudson, who Sherlock had asked to be the dealer. She'd accepted almost immediately, and Joan had been surprised by that, but also excited as well.

Ten minutes before they were supposed to start Sherlock, Marcus and Alfredo were arguing in the living room. It was giving Joan a headache and making her cross. Finally she heard a knock on the door and got up to answer it. Ms. Hudson was standing there, impeccable in a nice coat with a pretty scarf covering up her hair. She gave Joan a wide smile. “Am I late?”

“No, not at all,” Joan said, looking behind her. She saw the snow falling from the sky had thickened since Marcus had arrived a half hour earlier, and the piles of it on the sidewalk had grown considerably as well. “It looks pretty bad out there,” she remarked as Ms. Hudson brushed the snow off her shoulders.

“It could be an actual blizzard soon,” Ms. Hudson said thoughtfully. Then she stepped inside. “Though I suppose there are worse places to be stuck in a blizzard than with friends.”

Joan grinned back. “And maybe we'll luck out and Sherlock won't be insufferable if that happens.”

Ms. Hudson chuckled. “I hope not. Then I'm afraid one or more of you might seriously injure him.”

“Not you?” Joan asked.

“No, I can tolerate his quirks well enough.” Joan shut the door behind her and Ms. Hudson began undoing the scarf around her hair. “Am I the last one here?”

“Yes,” Joan said with a nod. She cringed slightly as Sherlock got particularly loud. “We haven't started yet because Sherlock, Alfredo and Marcus are having a 'spirited discussion,' as Sherlock said. Something about the fact that they thought Sherlock might cheat by reading them. You know, scanning them.”

“That's not good,” she said with a frown as she took off her coat and hung it up. Both women winced as Marcus growled at Sherlock. “Maybe if Sherlock's the dealer that might appease them?”

“That's actually a really good suggestion. Let's go bring it up before they come to blows over it. “The two women made their way towards the men, who were now even more heated in their disagreement. Joan cleared her throat, but they ignored her. She did it again, adding an “Ahem” to it, and they still paid her no heed. Finally she began to get frustrated, and it wasn't going to be long until she was just as loud as they were.

Before Joan lost her temper Ms. Hudson walked up to the three men and placed herself in the middle of them. “Gentlemen,” she said, giving them each a grin, and they all got quiet. “What if Sherlock was the dealer instead of me? That way he can't possibly be accused of using his skills of deduction to cheat.”

The three men all looked around her to each other. “I can live with that,” Marcus said slowly.

“I can too,” Alfredo said, nodding.

“You can play with my money, I suppose,” Sherlock said towards her.

“It's all right,” she replied. “I have my own.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “Why bring your own if you were going to be here simply to deal cards?” he asked.

“Well, I had hoped to be able to play at least one or two rounds,” she said with a smile. “I'm quite good at poker.”

“You don't seem the type to have a really good poker face,” Alfredo said with a grin.

“Yeah. You strike me as too expressive,” Marcus said. “If I was interrogating you and you were guilty I'd be able to tell.”

“Well, let's hope you never have to find out, Detective,” she said with a slight chuckle. “We should start now before the weather gets worse and we're here all night.”

“I can agree to that,” Sherlock said with a nod. “I have everything set up at the table.”

“Sherlock went out and got a proper poker table,” Joan said with an amused grin. “He spared some expense, though, so I fully expect it to collapse on us at some point.”

“It is not a cheaply made table,” Sherlock said, glaring at her as they made their way into the kitchen where the table was set up. “I just persuaded the retailer to give me a significant discount.”

“Do we want to know how you persuaded him?” Marcus asked, stopping in his tracks.

“I didn't use physical inducements,” he said with an exasperated sigh. “I merely deduced a few things about him and his business that I didn't think he would want to come to light.”

“I suppose that's all right,” Marcus said as he began moving again. They all got to the table and sat down. “I should have expected that of you anyway.”

“I think we all should have by now,” Alfredo said with a chuckle. They all sat down, and he ran his hand along the wooden part of the table in front of him. “This is actually really good quality.”

“Yes, it's quite exquisite,” Ms. Hudson said. “It reminds me of some of the tables I've seen at the high stakes poker games I frequented years ago.”

“High stakes, huh?” Alfredo asked. She nodded. “This must be nothing for you, then.”

“Well, I'm among friends so it's already a better game. But yes, a five hundred dollar limit is a bit low.”

“Well, I'm sure you'll manage” Sherlock said as he made himself comfortable at the dealer's spot at the table. “Al right. Are we all aware of the basic rules of Texas Holdem?”

“Not as well as I'd like,” Joan admitted. “I've only read about them. I've never actually played before.”

“I'll explain them,” Ms. Hudson said from her left. She began to launch into the rules, which Joan found were much more complicated than she had realized. Finally she finished. “Do you think you have a better understanding now?”

“Not really, no. But I'll try anyway.”

“Do any of you mind if I help her?” Ms. Hudson asked the others.

“For the first hand or two, no,” Marcus said. “It's no fun beating the pants of someone who has no clue what they're doing.”

Joan swatted at his shoulder. “Thanks a lot,” she said, glaring at him.

“Hey, it's the truth,” he said with a grin.

“I don't mind if he doesn't mind,” Alfredo said.

“Then it's settled,” Sherlock said with a nod. “Now, since our limit is so low we're not going to start with ten times the limit. We'll start with twenty-five dollars each.” He picked up a deck of cards from the table and showed it to them. “As you can see, it's a brand new deck, completely untampered with. I'll shuffle three times and then deal.” He broke the seal on the box and then let the cards fall into the palm of his hand. Then he cut the deck and shuffled it three times before dealing.

Everyone looked at their hands. Joan thought she had a decent hand, and she glanced at the others when she was done. After all, this whole evening was happening so she could work on reading people. She was fairly sure Alfredo had a bad hand, but Marcus and Ms. Hudson had virtually unreadable faces. Each of them bought into the game, and then she showed her hand to Ms. Hudson. “Those two,” she said, pointing to two cards.

Joan put down her two cards. Marcus and Mrs. Hudson took one each and Alfredo took three. Alfredo looked at his hand and sighed, laying his cards down on the table without a word. Joan didn't ask Ms. Hudson for help, because while her hand was better it still wasn't great, and she put in the barest amount of money she had to. Finally they all revealed their cards, and Ms. Hudson won the game with two pairs. She pulled the chips towards her as Marcus groaned. “I thought I had a chance,” he said.

“I'm very good at this game,” she said with a smile as she began sorting her chips.

“How good?” Joan asked, looking at her.

“One time I won a hundred thousand dollars at a game in Monaco,” she said. “It was against some of the best players in the world.”

Sherlock paused in what he was doing. “That's actually quite impressive.”

“That's not the only time I've won a great deal of money, but I don't want to brag,” she said modestly, looking down.

“I don't know. I kind of want to hear more,” Marcus said as Sherlock resumed dealing the cards. “From what I know about you you don't seem to be the card shark type.”

“There is a lot you don't know about me,” she replied. “I've played with quite a few of the big names in the poker world. I've also played with some very famous men and women, and won quite a few of those games.”

“Like who?” Joan asked.

“George Clooney, for one,” she said. “That was an interesting game. He tried to play a practical joke on my friend who invited me to play and it backfired on him, much to our amusement. And there was another time I played with Christopher Walken. The man has quite the poker face. I suppose my favorite time had to be when I played with Susan Sarandon. It was a very interesting game and I wasn't very upset when she beat me three times in a row.”

Everyone was ignoring the game for a moment, looking at her with wide eyes. “You know, I'd love to hear the story about George Clooney,” Joan said.

“Are you sure?” Ms. Hudson asked.

“Yeah,” Alfredo said with a nod. “And I want to hear the other two.”

“I'll admit, I'm intrigued as well,” Sherlock said.

“All right,” she said as they began to set up for the second hand. She launched into the stories as they played one round, and then another. They were in the middle of the fourth and she was still telling stories when the power went out. “That isn't good,” she said quietly.

“No, it's not,” Sherlock said. “I'll go get the candles and matches.”

“And I'll grab the flashlights,” Joan said. “I think I can get them without killing myself.” She and Sherlock stood up and moved away from the table, and after a few moments they returned. Sherlock set down a tray in front of where he had been sitting and then put the candles on it while Joan handed out flashlights. After everyone turned them on and Sherlock had the candles lit they made their way to the window. “I think all of us are going to be here for a while,” she said quietly.

“I'm sure we can find a way to keep ourselves from becoming mad from boredom while we wait,” Sherlock said.

“I say we hear more stories from Ms. Hudson,” Marcus said.

“I'd like that too,” Joan said with a smile, and Sherlock and Alfredo nodded.

“If you're sure,” Mrs. Hudson replied.

“Oh, we're sure,” Alfredo said with a wide grin.

“Then let's get comfortable and I'll tell you about the celebrity poker game where a brawl broke out,” she said, nodding back towards the poker table. They made their way over, and Joan briefly thought to herself that maybe this might be a better evening than she had anticipated, even if it was unfolding differently than any of them had planned. As Ms. Hudson had said earlier, there were worse places to be in a blizzard than being stuck with friends.


End file.
